Rarely do drag racing fans get the opportunity to watch prominent teams from competing sanctioning groups race perform in a national event atmosphere. Yet, that is exactly what occurs when competitors from both the NRHA and IHRA gather for the Eastern Sprint Test Nationals in Valdosta, Georgia.

This weekend, over 130 professional and sportsman racers will converge on South Georgia Motorsports Park [SGMP] for the 9^th annual running of what has proven to be the largest organized professional test session on the eastern seaboard, and for that matter in American drag racing.

The 2008 CSR Eastern Spring Test Nationals presented by Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com promises to be the largest in the history of the event that dates back to 2000.

Even after three name changes and three diametrically different venues the casual event continues to grow.

Dating back to 2000, changes of venue and event name, the Eastern Spring Test Nationals plays pivotal role

Rarely do drag racing fans get the opportunity to watch prominent teams from competing sanctioning groups race perform in a national event atmosphere. Yet, that is exactly what occurs when competitors from both the NRHA and IHRA gather for the Eastern Sprint Test Nationals in Valdosta, Georgia.

This weekend, over 130 professional and sportsman racers will converge on South Georgia Motorsports Park [SGMP] for the 9^th annual running of what has proven to be the largest organized professional test session on the eastern seaboard, and for that matter in American drag racing.

The 2008 CSR Eastern Spring Test Nationals presented by Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com promises to be the largest in the history of the event that dates back to 2000.

Even after three name changes and three diametrically different venues the casual event continues to grow.

“This event began as a simple pre-season event that I was entrusted to take to the next level,” Bobby Bennett, event co-ordinator and publisher of Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com, explained. “We started off in reasonable weather conditions and went to unreasonable and after all these years, I think we’ve arrived in Heaven. You just don’t know what it means to look at the weather forecast and not have to worry about snow being in the forecast. I think in all the years that we conducted this event outside of Valdosta, we experienced every kind of weather condition except a tornado and a hurricane.”

The event Bennett referred to as being the simple test session was a regular pre-season event in Darlington, SC. One of his first jobs as a full time drag racing writer was public relations director for Darlington Dragway in Darlington, SC.

“David Johnson, former manager at Darlington, God rest his soul, had always booked in four Pro Modified cars in a match race to launch his season,” Bennett recalled. “He called me one day and said that he wanted to, in his words, ‘Ratchet up this event.'”

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The initial Darlington event proved race fans were eager to see the leading racers make test runs. The tradition of the Saturday afternoon Chicago Style Eliminations provided a natural element for an event where drivers wanted to make as many test runs as they could.

A typical Chicago Style format, developed on the match race scene in the 1960s in the Midwest, provides the first two sessions to create a “final” round. The final round is comprised of the quickest two runs during those sessions. The quicker of the two gets lane choice. Following the completion of the final round, the balance of the class gets to make another run to fulfill three runs promised to the race fans.

“You were still able to crown a winner at the end of the day and the fans got to see everybody run, so it makes for a win-win situation,” explained Bennett. “A racer can have a bad first round and still end up as a finalist with lane choice.”

Many of these teams established the Darlington event as their opportunity to bring out a brand new car in a national event setting without the immediate pressure to perform. Prior to the show, drivers are granted two days of unlimited test runs.

“The great thing about the eliminations format is that some drivers, who had never been able to win a national event won at our event,” Bennett said of those early days in Darlington. “Seeing guys like Mike Castellana and John Montecalvo get their first wins was priceless. Now, one of those drivers is a former world champion and the other is a champion waiting to happen.”

Eventually politics would move the event from Darlington in 2001 further up Interstate 95 to Dinwiddie, Virginia at the Virginia Motorsports Park.

“At the time, there was a dispute between Darlington and the IHRA and the track left their sanction,” Bennett explained. “The event was billed as the official test session of the IHRA and it just so happened VMP was entering their first season under the IHRA.

Bennett said the upper management at the IHRA encouraged him to move the event to VMP as a means of warming the diehard NHRA fans to the new program coming to town. The name Groundhog Warm-up was replaced with a more regional Spring Open.

The initial transition was a trying experience to say the least.

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“I got a quick course in Weather 101 that first year,” Bennett explained. “The weatherman and I didn’t see eye to eye. When you looked at weather.com, the forecast said it was raining and snowing with ice. The pre-entered drivers were canceling in droves and the first drop of precipitation had yet to fall. The weatherman was flat out killing us.

“You’ve heard the old sayings of how the weatherman is wrong – well he struck out on that forecast. Finally, I got our staff photographer Roger Richards to snap a picture of our announcer “Staging” Steve LeTempt in a short-sleeve shirt to prove we had incredible conditions. Once we got some cars down the track and that photo hit the web, we had a line of rigs the next morning, waiting to come in.”

The next year, in 2002, Mother Nature blessed the event with unseasonable 70-degree temperatures. A plethora of quick elapsed times were in proportion with the incredible conditions that eventually produced a below sea level altitude.

Gene Wilson, then the defending IHRA Pro Stock champion, came within a .01 of running the sport’s first-ever 6.4-second elapsed time for a Pro Stocker.

The next season signaled the beginning of the end for the event in Virginia. The weather became more of an issue each year, and racers started attending the event less and less. The final nail in the coffin was in 2005 when a mere 15 cars attended. 

“The weather forecast called for rain, snow, sleet and high winds,” Bennett recalled. “Once again, we didn’t get those things in the first days. The damage was done. I think I kind of had an idea that it was time to get out of Dodge when the first car ran during that event.

“I was talking to IHRA President Aaron Polburn and with a sigh of relief we were going to get our first car down the drag strip – a bracket Mustang. I was talking to him letting him know we were finally underway and then I just stopped in mid-sentence and yelled, ‘No!” 

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Bennett admitted Murphy’s Law was in full force then.

“Aaron,’ I told him,” Bennett explained with a measure of laughter in his voice. “He just crashed. The son-of-a-gun just crashed.” 

The culprit of the crash was driver error when he mistakenly shifted into reverse but the damage was done by then. The 2005 season would provide the final Spring Open event and for all intent purposes was intended to be the final test session promoted by the staff of Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com.

A chance meeting in the summer of 2005 united Bennett and Shad Dean, manager for the newly opened South Georgia Motorsports Park. The two decided to continue the event but a change was definitely in order. For the third time in the event’s history, a name change came forth. 

The event was renamed the Eastern Spring Test Nationals and would quickly become a marquee event on the track’s healthy schedule. A combined effort between the staff of SGMP and Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com made the first event in 2006 an immediate hit, drawing almost 100 professional entries. Last year, the event topped 110 and nearly four thousand spectators.

“If only we’d had SGMP available in the early years of the event, there’s no telling where it would be at today,” Bennett exclaimed. “This event has become a way for us to promote our publication while interacting with the racers. You have one of these events and when it emerges a success, you can sense the pride in workmanship on the faces of each person involved. 

“The rubber-freckled starter to our incredible photographer Roger Richards to the management team that carries a great deal of responsibilities on their shoulders, the emotions that come forth makes the event a winner. This is so much more than just running race cars up and down the track.”

The 2008 event will bring yet another change to the event. The staff at Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com joins forces with the new ownership of SGMP for the ninth annual running. SGMP was sold last summer to Roland and Kim Wood, owners of the popular CSR Performance Products. 

“When you call the track manager Tim Fleming and start discussing the fine details, you quickly realize that he’s already got many handled,” Bennett explained. “This event can be overwhelming the first time you work it, but then again, every time we have an ESTN event, it’s just as exciting as the first.”

The most exciting part of ESTN, says Bennett, is the universal atmosphere in the pits. 

“SGMP is an NHRA track, but this event caters to all of drag racing,” Bennett explained. “Think about it, when is the last time you’ve ever attended a national event where you’ve had a 500-inch NHRA Pro Stock champion crowned just moments before a mountain motor IHRA Pro Stock winner only to witness a pair of  IHRA Pro Modifieds thunder down the quarter-mile. ESTN is everything wrapped up into one weekend.”